Woah! Ms. Janet doesn’t play when it come to unsolicited exposure, a.k.a her likeness on social media.
Earlier this week, fans complained about their Instagram accounts being deleted after posting footage of Janet Jackson’s Unbreakable tour from their smartphones. According to Page Six, fans received an email shortly after posting the footage saying “a third party reported that the content violates their copyright.”
A L.A. fan told Page Six, “Without warning. Every. Single. Photo. Gone.” Another fan, a blogger, said they received “five e-mails from Instagram . . . about the five videos I had posted . . . It seems like Miss Jackson’s [legal] team is on fire. What a shame they don’t understand the times we live in.”
A spokesperson for IG told TMZ that Jackson fans weren’t targeted; rather it was a “bug” that ha d to fixed within the system. “We have identified a bug that resulted in the removal of accounts that shouldn’t have been removed,” an Instagram rep said in a statement. “We have fixed the bug and are in the process of restoring the impacted accounts.”
However, Janet has now spoken up about the debacle. She her team’s passion for keeping her intellectual property safe. In a message posted to Twitter, Jackson wrote:
"My team is passionate about protecting the intellectual property we are creating for the tour and possible future projects. It was never their intention, acting on my behalf, to have social media accounts removed. Permitting the use of long clips does present a contractual problem for these projects. I hope you understand. I trust the fans will use their short recordings for their own memories and to share on their social media networks of choice."
Remember when concerts wouldn’t allow cell phone pictures to be taken? Now all you see at concerts are phones in the air! It’s a new day and age, time to figure out a way to merge intellectual property and social media into one big happy family.
